Friday, 31 July 2015

forces of nature

Time for a walk along a coastal footpath.
There's large chunks of the original path that have fallen into the sea. The underlying ground is made up of something called Gault clay known as blue slipper, which, as its name suggests, is partial to a bit of sliding around.

Fortunately we'd picked a sunny day and so although we were not too close to the edge, there was little prospect of any large scale land movement.
Not to say there hasn't been in the past. A whole village has fallen into the sea, as has a large part of an amusement park. This picture from above shows the well-known Blacking Chine amusement park as well as the fallen cliffs leading towards it.
The rest of the park continues and has been rebuilt across the road although inside the older section are various paths marked with no entry signs, which adds to the sense that we are dealing with major forces of nature. Then look the other way and everything seems tranquil.